


if i stayed awake with my worries

by Elisye



Series: no more goodbyes (though my heart is still aching) [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Reincarnation, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25788946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisye/pseuds/Elisye
Summary: The past loves to rear its head at the most unexpected of moments. Of course it does. Ofcourseit fucking does.(or: dragons can’t possibly be the only alien arrivals to Hydaelyn.)
Series: no more goodbyes (though my heart is still aching) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1911922
Kudos: 5





	if i stayed awake with my worries

When Mizuha stepped onto the ruined altar, ringing the bell to call Hraesvelgr for an audience, she wasn’t sure what to expect.

Well, she expected a dragon, yes. And dragons are a familiar enough thing to easily imagine. So, with white scales and feathered wings, it was a bit of a divergence - but still, what appeared was very much a typical dragon, so nothing about that moment should have been so surprising.

Not even the grand stories and revelations should have been surprising - in hindsight, anyway. Even if she didn’t think too much about it, Mizuha was well-versed in grand matters and grand secrets. The truth of Ishgard’s eternal war was within expectations in a universe so prone to being like a Kugane house play about a graceless world.

Everything was - should have - been going within reasonable measures. Here, she and the others would meet with Hraesvelgr, hear what he had to say, what he didn’t have to say, and continue to contemplate heroics regardless. That was how these things just went.

And that’s how it did. Until the dragon glanced its sole gold eye on her, the color rusted over with the disappointments of time, and her soul - her so very inhuman heart - reached out with a voice that could never be heard with mortal ears. It’s an instinctive thing that she knows she can squash down, stifle and choke, she's had practice to pull her songs back into the dark because no one can sing back, no one can hear her, this voice that carries not in air or aether but in—

She hears it. A rumble, low, a guttural sound of beasts and nonsense as it filters through her raen horns. A mere sound to gloss over, for most.

Her soul stutters, stumble over a note, sings in bewildered, hesitant tones.

_I apologize, I apologize, this humble child simply wishes to be heard..._

Hraesvelgr shakes his head, and there’s something like a sigh somewhere in the gesture. His attention briefly returns to the rest of the group, still in the midst of processing the twists and knots and turns in fate’s tapestry. _Don’t worry,_ Mizuha would say if she could - _because life is a mockery, and that is how it always plays out._

Parting words are given, warnings are made, rejections and cruelties made apparent. As the great dragon begins to take flight, he looks at Hydaelyn's bizarre chosen again, expression indecipherable because of his unfamiliar, beastly features. On the other side, her soul hears exasperation, simple as that.

“Why you have chosen to give your faith to these children of man,” Hraesvelgr begins to comment, coldly but tiredly, so tiredly - “I could have once fathomed. But at this moment, at this venture, I do not. You walk a fruitless path, siren child. Enduring, continuing - for what?"

Instinctively, she opens her mouth to give an answer, trivial or otherwise. She is interrupted - "No, do not answer. I wish not to be involved in man’s follies once more.”

“...I understand." Because a part of her - the part that doesn’t belong in the life of the Warrior of Light, in Mizuha Qalli, in a mere woman from Kugane - knows. It knows, it has questioned, it has raged and lamented and pulled at her tailcoats and asked, crying, _why would you walk the road of bravery and sacrifices once more?_

The answer to that - is that she didn’t. People looked at her with familiar eyes, expectant eyes, eyes that screamed _you are a hero, you are fated, save us save us save us_ —and fate thus forced her kind, kind hand.

What she would do to discard this mantle at once. Ishgard can explode from a catastrophic burst of dragon fire and Mizuha wouldn’t really care. The entire world could blow up and she wouldn’t be able to muster much in reaction, if she really wanted to. She just wants to sleep. She should be _asleep._

Wind and dust flare as this audience comes to an end. The air returns, clear and thin, and a group of wandering hopefuls is left to scavenge for a quick bandaid, a new plan, meditation and heroics just as expected. As per her role, Mizuha follows suit, silent and obedient. Each step down the stone stairway makes something electric flicker across her hands, up her heels. Like she should be saying something or doing something or yelling something, and perhaps she does. She really, maybe, does want to scream her heart out. It's been a while since she thought about resting, the final sort.

Instead, her soul sings a song, dreary but light enough to be picked up on the winds ferrying between hearts. Mizuha looks forward but thinks back all the while - she destroyed an entire world just to end up here, doing it all over again. What nonsense. What foolishness. After what she accomplished, she should be—

Estinien lightly jabs a plated elbow into her arm. She doesn’t need to look up and read his lips or his body language to hear the irritation in his soul - “Be careful. We don’t need the Warrior of Light to trip on some stairs and end her life with a mere broken skull.”

The woman can’t help the small laugh that slips out. She remembers being beheaded and then incinerated in realm-collapsing hellfire. 

“I suppose not.” _That would be somewhat close to how I died the first time,_ she doesn’t say, of course.

**Author's Note:**

> this was lowkey supposed to be vent writing but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh kind of got distracted?
> 
> also!! some notes on my wol!! so in ffxiv land, she's a mixed raen-xaela au ra who grew up in a v normal family living in kugane, and got entangled in Plot after travelling to eorzea for munnies. before that tho, she had a previous life as a human-siren hybrid in another world where she was coincidentally also the local champion of the gods and whatnot except she basically hated the entire thing and allowed her world to go kaboom.
> 
> while she's lost a couple of abilities from her previous life, she still retains her more siren-based skills since those werent tied to her physical body. mainly, she retains the ability to hear, feel, and communicate emotions through the soul.


End file.
